


The ones we left behind

by Autopxy



Category: Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Close Enough to a Triple Drabble, Flash Fic, Gen, POV Third Person Omniscient, Post-Canon, Post-Island, Unreliable Narrator, Vignette, or is it...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:53:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4085638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autopxy/pseuds/Autopxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to what Simon said, the boys don't make it back all right.<br/>None of the boys leave the island, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The ones we left behind

 

 **R** alph knows that this isn't real. Piggy's dead- he knows that all too well. He'd seen it happen, seen the blood, the brains, the broken body washed out to sea. But yet, here Piggy is, squinting owlishly in the dim light filtering in from the rafters. You aren't real, Ralph tells him lamely, and Piggy's lips curve into a sad smile. I suppose I'm not, he says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the dual lenses flashing in tandem. But reality is relative, really. And right now, I'm just as real as you are.

 

* * *

 

 **J** ack dreams. He dreams of freedom, running wild on a beach with the wind in his hair. He dreams of a lush green forest, the air thick from the humidity and the anticipation. He dreams of a strong, splendid hunter, with brilliant red hair. He dreams of a great fire devouring everything in its path, bringing an entire island to its knees. He remembers burning his kingdom to the ground. The dreams seem to go on forever. He sees golden hair and blackened bones. The screaming never stops.

 

* * *

 

 **R** oger hunts beast after beast. It seems like he's always hunting, these days, consumed by a desire to trap and catch and kill, no longer for necessity of sustenance, but merely for the thrill of it, of crushing an entire world between the palms of his hands. It's to an endless deadly rhythm that he dances, and each time his partner is unfailingly different, but somehow always the same. He never fully makes out what the Beast actually looks like. Sometimes, something about it reminds him of someone he used to know. Sometimes, he swears, it looks just like _him_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, basically, I wanted to explore how the boys were affected by their stint on the island. The way this fic is structured is to be pretty abstract and open to interpretation, while also being a teensy bit overkill on the symbolism/theme department(s), a bit like Golding's original work. I hope I got the characterization somewhat accurate, in terms of what the respective boys take away, and leave behind. 
> 
> This fic is dedicated to my lit teachers who taught this book as syllabus, not so much the first one who kinda hated my LotF essays and unintentionally kinda made me feel rly inadequate, or the second one who I may have had made quit, but the third one who I thought was great and kept on drawing LotF fanart, and the current one who is a sweetheart, and once, unknowingly not only lowkey cosplayed the naval officer, but also put up this very incestuous-looking picture of sam&eric on a PowerPoint slide.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
